Destroying An Entire Library of Music

This has popped in and out my head for the past five years. I always got scared of doing it, because I have so much that I will never, ever find again. I do not have much “popular” stuff, and some of these songs took me weeks to find. Some I’ve lost forever because a site went down or an artists disappeared.

But here is an extremely big experiment thats been playing in my head for so long:

I’ve grown up with depressive, angry, awe-striking music. Chevelle, deftones, 30 seconds to mars, etc. That genre of music (of the popular ones). Then I transitioned into all electronic. About 75% of my library has no vocals.

But listening to my music sets me in a very specific mind set. It will always put me there, and I sometimes want to go there, sometimes I want to get out. Over all, I don’t think its a healthy, ultra productive place to be, and the music is here solely to bring me there.

So, I thought what would happen if I changed all of my music, forever. Never going back to the old stuff. I would lose something like 50 bucks of actually paid for, the rest being generally free or pirated.

But then I would start all over. Scouring for free downloads of off-the-grid music, paying for the best of the best, but adopting a completely new, euphoric, happy, genre.

Karlheinz Stockhausen once said, ‘We should listen to ‘old’ music one day a year and the other 364 days we should listen to ‘now’ music.’ I take that challenge seriously and fail it often. I think that if you can manage it you’ll reap amazing rewards. Bonne chance!

@ijesuschrist, I lost ALL my music 2yrs ago after my divorce. Well, I had it all in my iPod and when that crapped out, I didn’t want to go back *there* and open the communication and ask for my files and just opted to just let go. I was devastated about losing my music then I slowly started building a new collection – discovered SO many new artists that I know I would not have had I still been listening to my old list. I’ve since downloaded/bought some music I’ve always liked (Beatles, Wilco, PieTasters, Specials, Moondog and whatnot…classics) but I now mostly have music that I associate with me discovering the new me. It’s pretty liberating.

@ijesuschrist, Why not just save all of your current under a folder on your desktop and then delete it from itunes or whatever you use? Then you can start anew and if you ever do feel like listening to the old stuff, you can pull it out of storage.

@tangledupinplaid21, That wasn’t what I was getting at at all. I stopped listening to Tool for the reason that the majority of their fans couldn’t stop fapping over their “genius” while blindly dismissing everything else within the genre. They are a talented band. Maynard is a smart man and Danny Carey is a phenomenal drummer, but there is certain level of delusion I have discovered with most Tool fans that once you’ve found them, all the other heavy stuff you used to listen to was unintelligent, generic shit.

Most bands that develop a strong cult following have something intelligent to say, perhaps taking the time to understand those bands before rubbishing them as well would make them more appealing. Tool and Deftones aren’t the be-all and end-all just like Korn and Marilyn Manson probably weren’t for you in highschool ;)

@tangledupinplaid21, I was moreso pondering/questioning than assuming. But my reasoning would be if he liked listening to this music than he will eventually go back to listening to it. Having said that, rereading the OP I’m not so sure he likes that type of music anymore, in which case he wouldn’t go back. Theres some things that I once worked hard (spent a long time) finding which I’ve given up and probably won’t be able to find again (music, movies, video games, trading cards), but I figure a) i had no use/value for them anymore and b) I truly didn’t want/need them anymore.

@staylucky, I’ll never understand people getting all hung up on the politics of music. “I don’t like this band because the people who listen to it are this way or that way”. Who cares?! It’s about the music, it literally has no affect on the sound of the music who listens or does not listen to it, or what those people say about the band. I don’t like bands to be trendy or part of a cult following.
And I don’t mind Korn or Marilyn Manson. I mostly stay away from that genre because it sounds angry to me, which has little to nothing to do with how intelligent the subject/lyric matter is. That’s why it took me so long to come around to Tool. If I literally feel worse after hearing your song, I refuse to seek out more of your material. Screaming angry whiney artists just piss me off for the most part.

@tangledupinplaid21, “Screaming angry whiney artists” Congratulations on the generalisation of the century.

Also, if music is intelligent in such a profound way then it should extend beyond liking it on such a simplistic level. But if I am wrong for this then I will accept that, but it doesn’t change the fact that you are ragging on bands you know practically nothing about.